Saturday, February 25, 2006

Talk About An Eye For Talent

Today, Joe Quesada announced that the great Simone Bianchi is now a Marvel exclusive artist.

Yes, that's right, of the SEVEN artists hand-picked by Grant Morrison to draw his Seven Soldiers mini-series, FOUR of the artists have been given a Marvel exclusive after their mini-series (some DURING their mini-series) finished. TWO of them, Cameron Stewart and Doug Mahnke, were already DC exclusive.

That leaves only Fraser Irving "available," although his most recent project has also been for Marvel (and it has looked amazing).

So now Grant Morrison's responsible for the talent of the artists he's teamed with? Here I was just assuming that editors don't try to put second-rate artists on heavily-promoted projects featuring big name writers, but I guess Morrison's magically made his collaborators draw better. We must elevate his status: "God Of All Comics" is not enough. From this day forward he is "Hal Jordan Of All Comics."

Since Morrison hand-picked many of the collaborators for the Seven Soldiers project (including Bianchi), I'd say he gets a nod for an "eye for talent" if they turn out to be good artists. Its not that he MADE them better artists, its that he saw their work, thought it was good, and wanted to work for them.

Not giving the man any credit for his craft is just as bad as elevating him to the "God of All Comics".

Here's a segment from the Newsarama article, interviewing Peter Tomasi:

"NRAMA: Speaking of those creators, how did you go about finding artists? I’m sure Grant's name helped, but at the same time, you've got some unique choices in there. What were your criteria?

Peter Tomasi: The first thing you want to do is get an artist who'll fit. There's no use in trying to squeeze a round hole in a square peg. You want somebody who'll complement the project, bring something to it while also trying to hit a very precarious deadline. An artist who will fit the tone and also take what Grant has written and run with it, push it even a little further. I wanted to make sure that Grant was happy with each artist I picked. He had already poured so much passion and heart into it, the last thing I wanted to do was come up with names that would take him out at the knees and drain all his enthusiasm while he continued to write full scripts for each of these books.

Grant came into New York and I threw him the list who I thought would be great and fit each project. He had two guys he definitely wanted in the mix, which was Cameron Stewart and Frazer Irving. The other artists who came on board were guys I knew would really enjoy working on the characters I slotted them into."

So basically, it seems like Peter Tomasi is the one with the eye for talent here.

But you just said before that the person who picked the artists should NOT get credit for the "eye for talent."

That being said, I'm perfectly fine with giving Tomasi credit for it, if he was the one who picked the five (that included Paquette and Bianchi, who, along with Irving, were the three biggest "finds" of the bunch).

From an interview with him I found online: Hervé: How long have you worked in the industry?

Paquette: About eight years. Here's a history. I did adaptations for tv shows like X-Files, Xena, Space Above and Beyond which got cancelled along with the comic. In also n worked on smaller projects like Warrior Nun. I did one year of Wonder Woman, one year of Gambit. I did one Superman book per year and a few JLA. I did one year of Codename Knockout, two years of Gen 13, Avengers, stuff for Crossgen. I try to avoid monthlies. I also work on Terra Obscura with Alan Moore. I like that.